


Going Dark

by Morgane (smilla840)



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: ALL THE SPOILERS, Aftermath of CA:TWS, First Time, I believe in SHIELD, M/M, clint's pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-10
Updated: 2014-04-10
Packaged: 2018-01-18 21:19:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1443325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smilla840/pseuds/Morgane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint is thousands of miles away when everyone apparently loses their mind, and it only goes downhill from there.</p><p>(<strong>Spoilers</strong> for CA:TWS and AoS 1x17)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Going Dark

**Author's Note:**

> I loved CA:TWS but I admit I was rather upset by what they did to SHIELD. I eventually came around (this fic was rather therapeutic, actually). That being said, I don’t think they really addressed the consequences of uploading all their files on the internet (except for Natasha being questioned about what’s in hers) or the kind of problems it must have created for the SHIELD agents who were out there doing their jobs. So far, neither has AoS (maybe next week!), and so this fic is my way of dealing with those potential fallouts and where people go from there, using Clint as a focal character (and Clint is not happy).
> 
> As mentioned above, this contains **spoilers** for Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Agents of SHIELD 1x17. There are also wild speculations about how we get from there to Age of Ultron based on those Hawkeye set photos. If you haven’t seen them and want to remain completely spoiler-free, this may not be the fic for you (then again, since I probably interpreted it all wrong, I’m not sure it’ll actually spoil anyone but better safe than sorry). I also used some stuff from the comics re: the twins (long live Wikipedia) but again, not sure if it qualifies as a potential spoiler since I have no idea how it will transfer into the MCU.
> 
>  **Additional warnings:** (canon) character death, grief, non-graphic mentions of torture, plus Clint swears a lot. There is also a brief mention of an OC attempting to kill himself. I think that’s it but let me know if I’ve missed something!

Clint hears the news almost a full day after it happens.

Later he’ll find missed calls and half a dozen messages on his cell, but he and his team have been off comms. for the past two weeks and his phone is sitting on his bedside table in the helicarrier. By the time he’ll get them, there will be nothing left for him to do but try and make sense of what went down and pick up the pieces.

At the moment he’s 150 miles north of Kabul and he’s just spent six hours in the observation nest. It’s dumb luck that it was his shift and not someone else’s, and he is tired and hungry. He doesn’t know yet that the location of the safe house that’s been home for the two weeks has been on the internet for five hours and counting. Doesn’t know his team has been dead for less than one.

They’ve been careful – Clint always is these days, he’s been responsible for too many SHIELD agents’ death as it is – and so the last thing he expects when he comes through the door is the two bodies on the floor. It makes no sense. They’re still at the fact-finding stage of the op and nothing’s been happening, unless you count Bergman’s experimentations with the local cuisine and Hendricks’s cabin fever. Clint doesn’t understand what went wrong (this time) but he doesn’t time to think about it. Doesn’t have time to think about Bergman’s kid and her upcoming birthday party or about Hendricks’s mom who is in the hospital. 

People are shooting at him and so he doesn’t think at all, he just reacts. 

He shoots back and he runs. It takes him three hours to be reasonably sure he’s lost whoever that was and he’s got a new hole in his body to show for it. Only then does he allow himself to take a break, find a defendable position and hunker down to call HQ. 

He reassembles his sat phone and dials Ops. 

No one answers.

Clint frowns and tries again, only to get the same result.

“What the fuck?” he mutters to himself. There is always someone in Ops, day and night, and he can’t think of a reason why they wouldn’t pick up – well, he can think of _one_ but it’s not something he wants to consider at the moment. So he keeps his head in the game and follows protocol and dials the helicarrier instead.

“This is Hawkeye, identification 46309-2A,” he says when he finally gets through. “The safe house is compromised and my team is dead. I need an extraction point.”

“Status?”

“I’m safe for now. Took a bullet but it’s just a graze, no need for medevac.”

“Hold,” he’s told and really, what the fuck?

As he waits, he takes stock of what ammo he’s got left – not as much as he’d like – and roots through his pack for his water bottle – almost empty. The med kit is next and he applies a field dressing as best as he can. The wound’s stopped bleeding at least, but with the adrenaline from the chase fading, it’s starting to throb painfully. 

“Hawkeye?” the line crackles back to life and Clint sits up.

“Here.”

“We have no extraction team available at the moment. Since you’re not critical you’re going to have to wait your turn. Stand by for further instructions.”

“What the hell is going on?” Clint asks because if HQ isn’t picking up and the ‘carrier is swamped, something is very wrong – is it another invasion? Is SHIELD under attack? What?

The line goes dead before he gets an answer and for a few seconds, Clint seriously considers calling Fury or Hill or Sitwell to get some damn answers. He considers calling Nat for longer but stops himself at the last minute. If something _is_ going down, they’re bound to be in the thick of it and they’ll have better things to do than to answer their phones. Besides, he’s stuck here – it’s not like he’s going to be able to do anything about it. 

Clint grits his teeth and settles down to wait for his ride. 

It takes seven hours for the ‘carrier to get back at him with a time and a set of coordinates, and another two for Clint to trek through too much open space to get there. The sun’s gone down a while ago and by the time he hears the familiar sound of a quinjet on approach he’s fucking freezing. He storms on board pissed off and more than ready for answers but the sight that awaits him stops him short. The quinjet is full of people, some of them bloody and others merely confused – he can spot two different strike teams and one scientific mission – and Clint temporarily swallows everything he’s bursting to say in favour of checking in with the pilot.

“Just you?” she asks and Clint gives a sharp nod.

“My team didn’t make it.”

“Sorry. We’ll try to get to them later but as it is we’ve got no room left and we still have another stop to make before we go back to the ‘carrier.” She sounds tired and Clint wonders how many hours she’s pulled today – and without a co-pilot too, the seat next to her glaringly empty.

“I get it. I can fly if you want to take a break.”

“No offense but you don’t look too hot yourself.”

Fair enough. “Give me a shout if you change your mind –” he checks her jacket for a name, “– Jamison.”

“Will do. You can sit here if you want, the others wanted to stick with their teams. Try not to bleed all over the seat.”

He nods his thanks and buckles up with clumsy fingers as they take off again. He feels cold and sluggish, and it takes a while for the heat of the quinjet to warm him up. He closes his eyes and tries to rest, but the dull throbbing above his hip won’t let him sleep and he finds himself shifting distractedly, trying to find a more comfortable position. 

“First aid is under your seat. There are painkillers in there,” Jamison says without looking at him and Clint forces himself to go still.

“I’m fine.”

She snorts but doesn’t call him on it.

“So, you’ve got any idea what’s going on?” he asks quietly, mindful of the others not far behind them, and she eyes him warily. 

“What have you heard?”

“Nothing. We’ve been dark for two weeks.”

“Damn.” She hesitates. “You’re Barton, right? Hawkeye?”

“Yeah.”

“You must know the Director pretty well, uh?”

Clint shrugs. He supposes he does – in as much as one can know Fury, anyway – but he isn’t going to admit to that out loud to a virtual stranger, SHIELD agent or not. Jamison doesn’t really seem to be expecting an answer though and she fiddles with the commands for a while before:

“Okay, so it sucks that I have to be the one to tell you this, but Director Fury died three – no, four – days ago.”

The denial that rises inside Clint is complete and immediate. It must be some sort of mistake. Fury can’t be dead – he is _Nick goddamn Fury_. Nothing and no one could ever kill the guy, he is too tough and too distrustful to ever die. Hell, Clint is pretty sure Nick is going to outlive them all, by sheer stubbornness if nothing else.

Those are thoughts Clint is well acquainted with – he’s been through this once before, after all, and thinking about Phil now is not helping – and it takes everything he’s got to put a lid on it. He knows what comes next and he can’t deal with it. Not yet.

“What happened?” he asks and his voice doesn’t even shake.

“I’m not sure, things have been pretty confused,” Jamison says, almost apologetic. “I mean, one second we’re told the Director’s been murdered and the next there is a warrant out for Captain America who’s supposedly withholding information about it.”

Clint blinks, feeling oddly detached from the conversation. It sounds like Jamison is saying Rogers had something to do with Fury’s death. That makes no sense at all and he shakes his head sharply, hoping it will clear some of the fog and help him focus.

No such luck. “ _Rogers_?”

“I know, right? Then the guy is broadcasting on all frequencies talking about some Hydra plot to take over SHIELD from the inside. The guys and I, we’re thinking, what the hell, right? Except _then_ HQ goes off-line and every news station is talking about leaked documents and some big battle going on over DC. I even heard a bunch of agents tried to take over the bridge on the ‘carrier. That was over pretty fast, which is good because that’s when you field guys started calling in from all over the place saying your ops were compromised. I’ve been flying evac pretty much non-stop ever since.”

“Any word on Agent Romanoff?” 

Jamison shakes her head. “Nah, sorry.”

Clint closes his eyes and lapses back into silence. Jamison seems more than happy to let him and he’s glad for that at least, except there is nothing to distract him from his thoughts now and so the self-recriminations come.

It’s Phil all over again. 

Clint has failed. Again. It happened days ago and he didn’t even know. He wasn’t there to watch Fury’s back – too late, he’s always too late – and now a good man is dead. And Clint, well Clint is fucking tired of losing people he cares about, people he owes so much to. He wouldn’t be here today if Fury hadn’t recruited him into SHIELD and supported him over the years while Clint was busy pissing off pretty much everyone else. If Fury hadn’t stuck his neck out for him after Loki when the Council wanted his head. 

Clint should have been there. He should have returned the favour – should have died for him if that’s what it took – but instead he’s still here. Still alive. Again. 

The last group on Jamison’s list isn’t at the rendezvous point, providing some distraction. She can’t raise them on the comms. and neither can the ‘carrier. They wait and wait but no one comes, and the satellite can’t find any trace of them either. Eventually Jamison gets the order to pull back and Clint knows that should piss him off – they should go and look for them, damn it – but today he just feels numb.

The silence in the quinjet is sombre as they fly back to base, the missing team heavy on everyone’s mind. Clint finally gives in and takes that painkiller, and he pretty much passes out until they land on the ‘carrier. He feels groggy and out of it but still better than before, and it’s nothing a cup of coffee won’t fix. At least he didn’t dream. 

The situation on deck is confused, a handful of agents trying to orient new arrivals to a secure location so they won’t take up precious space on the landing pads. There are too many people everywhere, too many walking wounded, and Clint waves off someone trying to direct him to the infirmary – he knows the way, thanks – and drags himself to the bridge instead, hoping for an update from Hill. There are signs of a firefight along the corridors and blood still on the floor, and Clint tries very hard not to think about the last time that happened. It doesn’t work.

Hill isn’t on the bridge when he gets there and when he asks the nearest agent he’s told she isn’t on board.

Well, shit.

“Where is the XO, then?”

“Agent Wu is in the infirmary, sir.”

The infirmary is as busy as the main deck, all its gurneys full, but Clint eventually locates Wu sitting on a plastic chair in a corner, having an ugly cut on his forearm stitched.

“Barton, thank fuck you made it,” Wu says when he sees him. He makes to stand but the doc working on him glares and he wisely remains sitting.

“Is it true? Is Fury dead?” Clint asks and Wu winces.

“Yeah, it’s true. Sorry.” 

“What about Hill?”

“No clue. She took off a few hours before we heard the news about the Director and we haven’t had any contact with her since.”

Clint feels a spike of worry and crosses his arms over his chest.

“Listen, Barton, things are a total mess here, I could really use some help,” Wu says almost apologetically and Clint straightens, relieved to have something to focus on other than his turbulent emotions.

“Anything you need.”

“We need pilots. We’ve lost a whole squad in the attempted take-over and we’ve still got teams in the field waiting for an evac. Can you fly?”

Clint nods automatically. The exhaustion from before is almost secondary now and he doubts he could go back to sleep even if he tried. He needs to be useful.

“Not so fast,” the doc who’s finishing up Wu’s last stitch interrupts. “I need to take a look at that first.”

He points at the blood on Clint’s jacket and Clint surrenders to his mercy with a sigh, waving Wu off with a promise to find him once he’s cleared.

“Here.” The doc shoves a bottle of water at him and snaps on a new pair of gloves, making sure Clint is drinking before he starts inspecting his attempt at first aid.

“Well, it could have used some stitches but it’s too late for that now,” the doc comments, cleaning the wound and wrapping it much more neatly than Clint had.

“Can I go now?”

The doc narrows his eyes at him. “When’s the last time you slept? Or ate anything?”

“I conked out for a few hours on the ride back,” Clint says defensively. Now is not the time to be benched. “And I had a powerbar six hours ago. I’ve flown in worse conditions.”

“I’m sure you have,” he mutters. “Okay, look. If you tell me you can fly, I believe you. You know what’s at stake here and I trust you wouldn’t endanger dozens of people by flying a plane when you shouldn’t just to prove a point. So I’ll make you a deal: you’re going to get cleaned up, eat a hot meal and drink at least another litre of liquid. If you still feel like you can fly after that, then you have my blessing.” 

“Fair enough,” Clint says and pushes himself to his feet with a wince, getting a pointed look for his troubles that he ignores.

He follows his orders to the letter, going first to his quarters for a change of clothes. It seems stupid to ruin the doctor’s good work by getting the dressing wet in the shower so he washes in the sink instead, feeling a little more human when he’s done. His cell phone is on his desk, inconspicuous and right where he left it, and he stares at it for a second before he picks it up. The battery is dead, no surprise there, and he has to plug it in and wait as it turns itself on.

He’s got a lot of missed calls and eight new messages.

The first three are weeks old, random slices of life from people who didn’t know he was on assignment, but the last five… 

The first is from Natasha, telling him Nick’s been hurt, and the second is an update on his condition after she gets to the hospital. Clint braces himself for the third, knowing what’s likely to come, but there are no words in it, only Natasha’s breathing that hitches every few seconds. It’s worse than Clint thought it would be, and he has to swallow past the lump in his throat before he can move on to the next. Nat sounds more like herself in that one, composed and business-like, but the message itself isn’t very encouraging. She tells him she hopes he’ll get this, that they’re going dark, and to watch his back. 

The last message is from an unknown number and is only three words.

“Get out now,” Natasha says and then the line goes dead.

Clint stares at his phone, willing another message to appear, for Nat to tell her she’s okay and that she’s fixed everything. When it doesn’t materialise, he calls her instead and isn’t surprised when it goes straight to voice mail. If she went dark, she probably got rid of her phone, switched to a burner, and so he tries the number she last called him from. No luck either.

“Call me,” he says after the beep on both numbers and heads for the mess to fulfil the last part of his bargain.

With every item on his checklist crossed out, Clint doesn’t feel guilty at all when he reports for duty on the bridge. Wu is giving instructions to the quartermaster and he finishes up when he sees Clint, gesturing him away from the other agents.

“So what’s up?” Clint asks.

Wu rubs his face with one hand and winces when it pulls on his stitches. He looks tired. “We don’t know much yet. According to Captain Rogers, Hydra’s operatives have infiltrated SHIELD to the highest levels. I know how it sounds, but the fact that we had to fight back a mutiny on the ‘carrier just seconds after his broadcast would seem to indicate there is some truth in it.”

Clint frowns. Hydra agents inside SHIELD? It sounds ridiculous. And bad. Very bad. “Any word from HQ?”

“No, they’re still dark. It looks like they had to handle a similar situation on their end. The Triskelion has been destroyed and our new helicarriers are at the bottom of the Potomac river.”

“Fuck,” Clint says with feelings. It’s worse than he thought. Judging by the look on Wu’s face, it doesn’t get better from there.

“I know. We also had a major leak at around the same time. Every file on SHIELD’s servers has been uploaded to the internet. It got taken down eventually but it keeps popping back up. You know how it is – once it’s out there…”

Clint nods. “Was it Hydra?” he asks and Wu shrugs.

“It’s not clear. Either way, whoever did it screwed us up good. I don’t think SHIELD is coming back from this, Clint. On-going missions, assets on the ground, safe houses – it all got compromised at the same time. We’ve been trying to get our people out as quickly as we can before the more enterprising criminals catch on but it’s already started. And it just gets worse.”

“Tell me.”

“Personnel files.”

“Shit.” Names, addresses, next-of-kins, the whole shebang – out there for everyone to see.

“Yeah. Everyone with a family is pretty freaked right now. We’ve done what we can to get the word out and get everyone to safety, but you know how it is. We’ve all got places we’d rather be.”

“I’m sorry, man.” Wu has a wife and two daughters. Clint’s met them once. They’re cute kids. “What can I do?”

Wu straightens and the ‘carrier XO reemerges, leaving the worried husband and father behind.  
“Right now we’ve got more quinjets than pilots and it’s slowing us down. Report to the flight deck, you’ll be assigned a bird and a flight plan.”

Clint nods and starts to turn before he pauses: “How do you know _I’m_ not Hydra?”

Wu gives him a wry smile. “Honestly? I don’t. But the way I see it, if you are we’re pretty much screwed considering what happened with…” he trails off uncomfortably and shrugs. “So I’m going to assume you’re one of the good guys. It’ll make me feel better.”

“Thanks,” Clint says and goes to report for duty.

 

Over the next few days Clint ferries people back and forth until he’s ready to drop, at which point he goes back to his quarters and lays on the bed, staring at the ceiling for a few hours before he finally finds sleep and the nightmares come. Then he wakes up and does it all over again. 

He doesn’t think about Bergman and Hendricks and all the missing teams out there. He doesn’t think about Natasha who still hasn’t called him back. He doesn’t think about Nick. 

He doesn’t think about Phil. 

After three days they’ve done pretty much all they could. There are still teams unaccounted for and the death count is still rising but it’s levelling off slowly. Small mercies, right?

A clearer picture of what happened is emerging, reports trickling in one by one. Hydra tried to take over, using the new ‘carriers to do it, but their plan appears to have failed thanks to Captain Rogers. Most of the SHIELD bases around the world are still dark – whether they’re on lockdown or have been taken over by Hydra or some other organisations, no one is really sure – and Wu’s keeping them in the air for now. If they’re the only part of SHIELD that’s still operational then they need to keep flying – they’re a too-easy target on the water. 

Clint agrees with the reasoning but the situation on the ‘carrier is quickly becoming untenable. Morale is low and tensions are high, the too-close quarters combined with the unspoken possibility of more Hydra sleeper agents making everyone tense and on edge. Thank fuck all weapons have been confiscated or Clint’s pretty sure they would have had another fire fight on their hands. That, or a streak of suicides – they’ve already had to talk one specialist down from the ledge, the poor guy unable to face his family finding out everything he had done for SHIELD. Clint’s never been more glad that he doesn’t have any family and friends outside of SHIELD.

Hill shows up on the fourth day. Natasha is with her and she allows Clint’s bear hug with more magnanimity than she usually does, holding on just as tight. 

“I wasn’t worried at all,” Clint says after a while, the words rough and uneven.

“Me neither.”

He laughs, the sound a little watery, and lets her go when she pulls away.

“You okay?” he asks because she’s got that look on her face, the one from the early days, and it’s not at all comforting.

She shrugs, which more or less confirms Clint’s fears – he’ll have to ask later. Not now though, because Hill’s voice is coming through the sound system, calling for an assembly in the mess. There won’t be enough room for everyone, Clint knows, and he looks at Nat inquisitively.

“You should go,” she tells him. “You’ll want to hear what she has to say.”

“You’re not coming?”

“I already know. I’ll see you in your quarters after.”

Clint nods and makes his way to the mess. He was right, there isn’t enough room but he finds a spot at the back of the room and leans against the wall, waiting, as Hill steps up to the microphone.

“I’m sure you’ve all heard a lot of things about what’s happened over the past few days,” she starts with. “Yes, SHIELD has been infiltrated by Hydra.” Almost immediately murmurs go up but Hill ignores them and keep talking, forcing everyone to quieten down quickly. “Those agents were responsible for Director Fury’s death and then tried to eliminate their opponents using the weapon system on the new helicarriers. They were stopped.”

She looks around the room, giving everyone a few seconds to digest her words before she goes on. “In order to expose Hydra, SHIELD’s files were made public. It was a hard decision to make and I know some of you have suffered because of it, but it was the only way to ensure Hydra would not be able to take over and hide behind SHIELD’s name if we weren’t successful in stopping them. Unfortunately, all actions have consequences, and we cannot be effective in our mission if the whole world knows everything about us. As a result, as of yesterday SHIELD has been formally dissolved by the new Council. I’m sorry.”

Hill pauses, maybe expecting another outburst, but the room is deathly silent. Clint is finding it hard to breathe and he can see on the faces of everyone around him the same dumbfounded expression he imagines is on his own. 

SHIELD is gone. Everything he’s worked for for close to two decades, everything he _knows_ , vanished in the blink of an eye. It seems impossible to contemplate. Surely it’s a trick, some way to convince Hydra they’ve won and SHIELD is out of the way while they regroup. 

Right? 

“In a few hours we’ll land and people from the DOD will take possession of the helicarrier,” Hill says. “You’ll be allowed to take your personal effects with you before you disembark. You will then be debriefed before you’re allowed to go back to your families. There are a lot of you and it may take some time, so I’m asking you try to be patient and make sure it goes as smoothly as possible. Thank you.”

She steps away from the make-shift podium and people part before her as she makes a beeline for… well, for Clint, actually.

“Barton, walk with me,” she says and Clint follows.

“I’m glad to see you in one piece,” she tells him but Clint isn’t really in the mood for pleasantries.

“No thanks to you, apparently.”

“You know I can’t apologise for that.”

“Yeah, I know. Doesn’t mean I don’t think it was a stupid ass decision.” Because he does. In fact, the more he thinks about it, the more it pisses him off, but Hill is having none of it.

“You weren’t there,” she says. “You have no idea how badly SHIELD was compromised. They _would_ have taken over. It was decided to tackle the problem at the source: no more SHIELD, no more Hydra.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

She narrows her eyes at him dangerously. “Barton–”

“ _No more Hydra_? They’re not going to just vanish into thin air because SHIELD is gone. We had them right here under our very nose, we could have done something about it! Instead they’re going to disappear who the hell knows where. They’ll regroup, you know they will – that’s what they fucking _do_ – and SHIELD won’t be there to do a damn thing about it because you’ve _burned it to the ground_.”

Hill’s eyes flash. “You think I’m happy about it?” she growls. “Believe me, I’m _not_. But it is what it is, Barton. The decision was made and now all we can do is live with it.” She suddenly looks as tired as Clint feels and he takes a deep breath, trying to rein in his anger. 

“Who was it?” he asks more calmly.

She frowns. “What do you mean?”

“Who was it who made that call? You said it wasn’t you and Fury was dead, so who was it?”

Hill hesitates for a split second. “Captain Rogers.”

Clint blinks and lets out an incredulous laugh. “Are you serious?”

Apparently she is, and you know what? Clint is done with this shit. Rogers is a good guy, one of the best – hell, he’s Captain America – but he’s also a _25 year old kid_ who’s been a SHIELD agent for all of ten seconds. What gives _him_ the right to make that call and piss all over the work good people have been doing for years?

“That’s not what I wanted to talk to you about,” Hill says, cutting through his thoughts. “As you pointed out, Hydra is going to be a problem now more than ever. If you want to do something about it, Romanoff will have an address for you. Go there and wait for instructions. And Barton? You’ll need to watch your back. The Council wanted your head after Loki and with SHIELD gone, you’ve lost your only protection if they decide to come after you again.”

“Right.” Fucking great. “Thanks for the heads-up. What about everyone else? Because I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you’ve just put hundreds of people out of a job,” he says, gesturing in the direction of the mess. “You know as well as I do that no self-respecting agency is going to touch most of them with a ten foot pole, not when they’ve got a 50/50 chance of hiring a Hydra agent.”

“We’ll figure something out.” She doesn’t seem overly optimistic and Clint snorts, the sound harsh and bitter. 

“Yeah, you do that.”

He stalks off, leaving Hill standing in the middle of the hallway without waiting to be dismissed – after all, she is no longer his superior officer. Clint doesn’t have those anymore.

Deep down, he knows he is being unfair. Hill is right, he wasn’t there. There are huge gaps in his knowledge of what actually went down and once he figures out what those are maybe he’ll even agree with her – agree that SHIELD had to be put down. But _she_ was Nick’s AD and she should have been the one making the decisions, not Rogers. Maybe it wouldn’t have changed the outcome but it sure as hell would have made Clint feel better about it. SHIELD’s been her life as much as it’s been his and at least he would have trusted her not to choose lightly.

Instead all he’s got right now is more questions than answers and an incontrollable urge to deck Rogers when he next sees him. Because SHIELD doesn’t exist anymore and apparently that was his call to make. 

Fuck, Clint is tired.

Natasha’s on his bed and her eyes snap open as soon as he comes through the door, alert and on edge in a way she usually isn’t when she’s on the ‘carrier. Whatever she sees on his face must be bad because she doesn’t say anything, just scoots over to make room for him, and Clint lays down next to her and stares at the ceiling.

He doesn’t know what to do.

He’s spent over fifteen years of his life at SHIELD and he’s got no fucking clue who he even is if he isn’t a SHIELD agent anymore. When Fury recruited him he gave him a purpose, and then he gave him Phil, who, in turn, gave him ideals to live by. SHIELD’s given him friends and a family and – unwittingly – someone to love even if he didn’t love him back. Most of that is gone now, and Clint doesn’t want to find out what happens when all he has left is Nat, who struggles as much as he does with right and wrong. And he’s scared – no, he’s fucking terrified – that without SHIELD’s anchoring influence, they’ll revert to how they were before. That _he’ll_ revert to how he was before. Clint doesn’t like that person very much and neither would Phil – or Nick. He doesn’t want to let them down more than he already has.

“Hill said you had an address for me?” he finally says and Natasha rolls onto her side and props herself on an elbow to look at him.

“We can talk about that later.”

He sighs and rolls over to mirror her position, wincing as it jars his still-healing wound.

Natasha frowns. “You’re hurt.”

“It’s nothing,” he says but of course she has to look for herself. He lets her and sees a flash of guilt in her eyes, so he tries to distract her with: “How are you?”

She shrugs with one shoulder. “Could be better.”

“Yeah, I’m familiar with the feeling.” He wants to hug her again but he thinks she may have reached her limit for the day, so instead he settles on laying a careful hand on her arm. “I’m sorry about Nick.”

Nat looks away. “You knew him longer than I did,” she says. Her voice sounds odd.

“It’s not a competition.”

She smiles, but it’s a little wobbly. “I’m getting that.”

Silence settles between the two of them once more but there is an edge to it now and Clint doesn’t last long before he has to ask:

“What’s up?” 

There is clearly something on her mind and she still won’t meet his eyes when she says: “We met someone, Steve and I. He said it wasn’t just an infiltration. He said SHIELD had been pursing Hydra’s goals all along. And I started to wonder…”

“Nat, don’t.”

“What if it was true? You don’t know how deep it went. What if every time we were out there, killing someone or locking them up or shutting them down, we were really helping Hydra get a little closer to fulfilling their objectives?”

Clint shakes his head. “No, hey, come on. We’re the good guys, remember?”

“Are we? Sometimes I’m not sure I can even tell the difference anymore.”

“Well, I can. Trust me, okay?”

She smiles, but it’s thin and a little wistful. “I envy your certainty,” she says and Clint hates everything about this. He hates whoever or whatever made Natasha doubt herself so much.

He sits up, putting his back against the headboard, and Natasha does the same, staring at him as if he has all the answers.

“Look,” he starts, trying to find the right words. It’s never come easy to him. “Nick… Nick was a good guy, right? I mean, sure, he was a stubborn bastard who kept too many secrets and didn’t trust anyone but you always knew which side he was on. And Maria… well, Maria can be a pain in the ass but she always does the right thing, doesn’t she? And what about Phil? Phil was the best, yes?” His voice breaks a little there but he takes a deep breath and soldiers on. “That’s three of our top officers, all good people.”

“Jasper was one of them,” Nat says quietly and Clint closes his eyes and feels like crying. He hadn’t known. Jasper… Jasper had been Phil’s friend – Clint’s too, after a fashion. He could be so fucking annoying and the only way to shut him up was to shove food at him. But he had been a good guy, someone you could rely on. He had gotten Clint out of a hairy situation in Guatemala once, carrying him on his back for five miles to the extraction point. At least Phil hadn’t lived to see this, it would have gutted him. And Clint hates Jasper because it’s the first time he’s seen any upside to Phil being dead.

“Yeah, okay, that… That sucks.” Clint swallows hard and blinks, forcing his thoughts back to the present. “But the people we killed, they were bad. So what if killing them helped Hydra in some way? They still needed to be taken out. It’s not just what we did that matters, it’s _why_. We didn’t kill them because it made things easier for Hydra, we did it because in the grand scheme of things, it meant people were safer because of it. Didn’t we?”

She nods but Clint can tell she isn’t entirely convinced. “What if… what if they fabricated evidence to get rid of whoever was inconvenient to them and sent us to do their dirty work?”

Clint shudders at the thought. Of course it’s possible – anything is possible, apparently, in this fucked up new world. Ignorance really is bliss.

“I don’t know about you, but most of the people I’ve killed were in the middle of doing the very thing they were accused of when they died. And if they weren’t, if some of them were actually innocent, then you didn’t know. You were manipulated into it by people you trusted. It wasn’t your fault.” 

He hopes Natasha will hear him but he knows guilt doesn’t work like that. How many times was he told the exact same thing in Loki’s aftermath? How long did it take him to believe it? On bad days, he still doesn’t and now it looks like he may have to add to the list of people he’s killed who didn’t deserve it. Where does it stop?

Natasha doesn’t say anything, communicating her feelings with her body when she leans against him, and Clint gives in and wraps an arm around her shoulder. It seems to make them both feel better.

“Don’t tell me, I sound hopelessly naïve,” he sighs and Natasha gives him a half-smile she learned from Phil.

“It’s nice.”

They sit side by side in silence for a while, until Natasha quietly says: “I’m going to testify in front of a senate committee. Then I think I’ll need to go off-grid for a while.”

Clint nods. He understands the urge to take off. “Will Rogers testify too?”

Nat raises an eyebrow at whatever she hears in his voice. “You don’t like him.”

“At the moment? Not very much, no. Hill said he was the one who decided SHIELD should go.”

“It was necessary.”

“Maybe. Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

Nat inclines her head, giving him that at least, and Clint closes his eyes. These issues he has with Rogers, he knows they’re on him, not Steve.

The thing is, you couldn’t know Phil Coulson and not like Captain America at least a little. Phil’s enthusiasm had always been contagious and you’d have thought Rogers walked on water hearing Phil talk about the guy. Sure, it had been harder to still like him when he had suddenly been right there, real and very much alive, but it wasn’t like Clint had had any claim to Phil’s affections in the first place – Phil had been dating his cellist at the time and even if he hadn’t he still would have turned Clint down. There were the frat regs to consider, after all, and Phil Coulson hadn’t been one to break the rules. 

Besides, it had been pretty obvious that if Phil had ever been inclined to date another man, his type would have been a lot more Steve Rogers than Clint Barton. That had been okay too: Phil had deserved the best and Rogers certainly was that, a white knight in shining armour when Clint had always been more comfortable in the grey. If Phil had announced out of the blue that he and Rogers were dating, Clint would have been happy for him – eventually.

But of course then Phil had to go and die on him, and Clint had found he didn’t really know how to live without him. Being around Rogers had just made it worse and so when the man had joined SHIELD, Clint had avoided him at all costs. At least if he didn’t see him he wouldn’t think about Phil and it wouldn’t feel like someone was pulling his heart right out of his chest every time.

It hadn’t helped that Fury had decided to partner Rogers with Natasha more often than not. To this day it still makes Clint angsty and like a five year old who doesn’t like to share his toys. He isn’t proud of it, but Natasha is _his_ partner and while Clint may know plenty about Captain America, he knows relatively little about Steve Rogers – his own fault, he knows. While Natasha can certainly take care of herself, the whole point of being with SHIELD is that sometimes she doesn’t have to – that she has someone she trusts to watch her back. And she hadn’t trusted Rogers, not then. Maybe now she does. 

Natasha shifts next to him, pulling him out of his thoughts.

“I think maybe it had to be him,” she says so softly Clint almost can’t hear her. “None of us would have had the heart to do it.”

He nods against her hair. Maybe she’s right. But it doesn’t change the fact that SHIELD had been all he had left of Phil and now it feels like he’s losing him all over again.

 

Before she leaves, Natasha gives him a time and a place and tells him to watch his back. She also apologises, which Clint doesn’t understand until a month’s gone by and he’s standing in a house somewhere in Eastern Europe with a gun pointed at Fury’s head.

In all the fairness, the man startled him and it’s not every day that Clint sees a dead man.

“What the fuck?”

“Yeah, it’s nice to see you too, Barton. Put that gun away and sit your ass down, will you?”

Clint automatically does as he’s told, following Fury’s orders too much of a habit for him not to, and he sinks down into a chair heavily.

Fury’s alive. Fury’s alive and Natasha knew. Clint has no idea how he feels about any of it. Relieved, maybe? Betrayed? Happy? What?

“Seriously, sir, what the fuck?” he asks again and Nick snorts.

“I see you’re your usual articulate self, Barton. Good to know some things never change.” He sounds amused of all things and Clint glares at him. “Oh, relax, it was necessary. Things are one big mess right now and no one will be looking for a dead man.”

“Fair enough,” Clint allows, his mind busy trying to rearrange everything he thought he knew about the past few weeks. 

It’s not as easy as it might seem. 

Because if Fury’s been alive all along, then he _let_ Rogers destroy everything he had worked for – probably helped him too. Clint doesn’t kid himself: if Fury had wanted to stop Rogers, he would have. And while Clint still doesn’t get it and probably never will, it does make him feel a little better to know Fury was in on it. SHIELD’s always been his life’s work, after all, and you can be damn sure he wouldn’t have let it burn if there had been another viable option. However, that begs one question:

“How long have you been planning this?”

Fury’s eyebrow shoots up and he looks reluctantly impressed. Was Clint not supposed to catch that? 

“This wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, I promise you,” Nick grumbles and Clint just looks at him until he finally starts talking. “Fine, I’ll tell you. Two years ago, during the battle, two birds tried to take off from the ‘carrier. One of them succeeded.” Clint nods – he knows all this – and Fury goes on: “You don’t just launch a bird off my ship against my direct order. Council orders or not, I think you’ll agree the majority of SHIELD’s pilots would have disobeyed that order – unless it had been relayed by someone inside SHIELD. So yeah, I wondered. And then one of the pilots died from non-life-threatening injuries in our infirmary and the other up and disappeared, and I wondered some more.”

“So you thought, what? That we had a mole?”

Nick nods. “Someone high up the food chain. At first I figured they were reporting to the Council, keeping an extra eye on us – ungrateful bastards –, but it quickly became clear it was more than that. So I started compartmentalising, kept more things on a need-to-know basis. The Insight program seemed like an obvious target so I kept a close eye on that too, figuring they might use the launch to try something. Obviously I miscalculated the actual threat. Badly.”

Somewhere in the back of Clint’s mind, a warning siren starts wailing.

“The launch date for the Insight program was decided months ago,” he says slowly. “If you knew when it was going to happen…”

He trails off and Fury looks back at him steadily, waiting for him to finish his thought.

“Then why the _fuck_ did you make sure I’d be in the middle of fuckin nowhere when it did?” This is where Clint should be angry, probably, but for now he just feels completely bewildered.

“I thought they might have access to some information you’d be vulnerable to. Figured it would be best to take you out of the equation.”

That… that hurts more than Clint thought it would. It shouldn’t: he knows Nick doesn’t trust anyone so he really shouldn’t take it personally that he didn’t trust _Clint_. Except he is, damn it, and he can’t help but wonder if this is Loki’s last parting gift, the dissolution of the confidence Nick had put in him over the years. 

“Is this about my brother?” He asks, looking down at his hands. He hasn’t seen Barney in years, but trust his brother to keep fucking up his life even when he isn’t in it.

Nick hesitates and when Clint looks up he can actually _see_ him weighting the option of saying yes. It’d be a lie but it’d be an easy one – one Clint might even be tempted to believe. It might also break him once and for all, because it’s one thing to be kept in the dark and it’s an entirely different thing to be lied to to his face.

“No,” Nick says and the relief Clint feels is short-lived, shattered beyond all recognition by the next words out of Nick’s mouth. “It’s Coulson. He’s alive.”

Clint stares at Nick incomprehensively. He doesn’t understand. Phil’s been dead for two years. He was at the wake. He regularly visits his grave. _How_ can Phil be alive? 

Then the words finally start to make sense – the whole thing starts to make sense –, and Clint really wishes it hadn’t.

No.

Just… no. 

He stands and walks out of the door. Nick doesn’t try to stop him.

Clint finds a bar and proceeds to get completely shitfaced. It takes embarrassingly little time: as a rule he tends to stay away from alcohol, too many bad memories of his father colouring his perception, and as such his tolerance is ridiculously low.

If he were still sober, he’s sure part of him would find this funny. After all, he’s reacting to the news of Phil’s continuing existence the exact same way he did to his death: with utter and complete denial. Clint should be pleased, hell, he should be fucking _ecstatic_. Phil’s alive. Maybe once he’s had time to process everything, he will be. He’ll come up with a handful of rationalisations and a few white lies and he’ll keep going, like he always does. 

Right now though Clint doesn’t have the strength for any of that and all he feels is hurt. Phil’s been alive for the past two years and Fury let him believe otherwise – _Phil_ let him believe otherwise. And for what? Oh, he supposes they’ll have plenty of reasons – something about the mole, maybe, or about the wonders of what you can achieve when most of the world thinks you’re dead. In the end it doesn’t matter. 

It all comes down to this: Clint wasn’t good enough or smart enough or trustworthy enough.

Story of his life, really.

In a way he supposes he should thank them. Their little stunt may just have done the trick and ridden him of whatever misgiving or nostalgia he still had regarding SHIELD’s demise. He toasts to that with a bitter smile and lets the alcohol dull his thoughts, welcoming it with open arms.

Fury at least has the decency to wait until Clint’s good and drunk before he shows up.

“Fuck off,” Clint slurs but of course Fury ignores him. 

He half-drags, half-carries him back to the house and Clint puts up a token protest but he isn’t being very coordinated at the moment and he can’t stop Nick from dumping him on the couch.

He blinks up at him – it’s weird to see him without the eyepatch – and Nick studies him back solemnly for a minute until Clint decides he doesn’t want to look at him anymore and childishly rolls away, pressing his face into a cushion. It feels wet. He dimly wonders why.

“Why did you tell me now?” he manages eventually, the words barely intelligible.

Nick sighs. “There aren’t that many of us left. You’ll end up working together sooner or later.”

Clint shakes his head and closes his eyes. If Fury says anything else after that he doesn’t hear him. 

He wakes up the next day nauseous and with a blinding headache that takes hours to fade. 

They don’t talk about it. 

Clint doesn’t demand answers or explanations, and Nick doesn’t volunteer any. Instead Clint asks what Fury wants him to do and Fury tells him.

They’re going after Hydra.

Fury still has a number of former SHIELD agents working for him – Phil is one, obviously, and so is Hill, who’ll be working intelligence from Stark Industries. Stark’s agreed to hire her for some pretend job and give her limited access to Jarvis to help. Clint isn’t sure how they managed that – the man has made no secret of what he thinks of SHIELD over the years – but apparently Hydra murdered his parents, which Clint guesses is a good motivator to throw yourself in a fight. There are more but Fury doesn’t tell names. Probably for the best, considering the situation they find themselves in.

There is a distinct chill to their interaction that will set the tone for all their encounters from now on. Clint listens and nods in all the right places and he doesn’t say a word beyond what’s required of him. He gets his instructions – a potential Hydra base in Estonia – and a burner with three programmed numbers in it.

Then he leaves, and he doesn’t look back.

They rarely meet in person after that. When they do, Clint is cool and perfectly professional. Sometimes he thinks he sees regret in Fury’s eye but he’ll get over it. Clint has. It took some soul searching, sure, but in the end it didn’t even take that long. Clint is used to having to manage his expectations – all he needs is a reminder every now and then.

It’s not like he can actually blame Nick or Phil for any of it. They are – were – both high-ranking members of SHIELD and when decisions had to be made, they made them. They didn’t owe Clint a thing – on a professional _or_ personal level – and he can wish all he wants that they had given his mental health more consideration, but that he even expected that much in the first place, well, that’s really on him, isn’t it?

Clint isn’t sure where it comes from, this childish belief that he deserves better than what he gets. You’d think he would have learned by now.

It’s better this way. Clint will keep his distance and his emotions in check and he’ll be okay. Besides, he’s got a job to do. So he does. He watches warehouses and silos and seemingly inconspicuous labs. He gathers intel and takes care of his targets, forwarding what he finds on their drives back to Hill. More often than not, this requires that he blow shit up and kill people. That’s okay, he’s very good at both. And if sometimes he recognises the people he’s shooting at as former colleagues, he pretends it doesn’t bother him. His dreams tell a different story but that’s fine too. He doesn’t need that much sleep anyway.

He just waits for a text with a new location and does it all over again.

All in all, the work is not that different from what it was before. He’s done his fair share of solo ops for SHIELD and he is used to working without backup. Sure, more than once he wishes he had a strike team to fall back on when things inevitably go to hell, but he makes do. It’s not like he’s all alone out there: he teams up with other people when the situation requires it, some he already knew and some he didn’t. They only go by codenames these days – Clint has a new one – and no one was really in the mood to reminisce.

What _has_ changed is what happens between assignments. There is no going home, no down-time to relax, no letting his guard down. After a while it starts to get to him.

 

After a few months, Natasha catches up with him. 

“Nick told me about Phil. I’m sorry,” she says quietly and Clint finally feels like he can breathe again. 

Because he had wondered, again and again, if she had known and watched him lose himself without saying anything. That incertitude has plagued him over the past few months, and hearing it from her finally eases something inside him.

She could be lying, of course – she knew Nick was alive and didn’t tell him either, but then he’s never felt for Nick what he did for Phil – but just this once Clint is going to believe what makes him feel better instead of worse. He’s learned he can do without a lot in his life – Nick is one, and the past couple of years have shown him that Phil is another, maybe because Clint never really had him in the first place – but he doesn’t think he could do without Natasha. Not now. Not when he’s lost everyone else.

Everything is easier when Natasha is around. The ops go more smoothly. Clint starts to smile again. He even gets a few good nights’ sleep.

Of course, some things are harder too. She knows him better than he knows himself and she won’t let him hide. They get into a yelling match when Clint insists he’s made his peace with being kept in the dark one time too many – or at least Clint yells. Natasha just gets icier and icier until every word out of her mouth is a knife that finds its target. But maybe Clint needs that too. Maybe he _isn’t_ as fine as he likes to pretend. And maybe that’s okay too. He doesn’t have to be rational about everything.

Natasha doesn’t stick around for long, off to her own mission, but by the time she leaves Clint feels more comfortable in his own skin than he has in a while. So of course it’s almost inevitable that he would run into Phil.

He is rendezvousing with ‘Codename: the Bus’ on an airstrip somewhere in Poland before they fly to a location in Sweden. Hill’s found some clues about a Hydra lab not far from Storuman, which is why they’re sending a science guy along with Clint.

The Bus, it turns out, is a plane – or rather a team. Phil’s. Who is the one who comes out to greet Clint when they land.

It goes about as well as Clint expected.

Phil freezes. 

Clint freezes. 

Then Clint remembers he’s supposed to be past this and he forces his feet to move forward. They’re on a schedule, after all.

Thankfully Phil has regained his composure by the time Clint reaches him, though he’s still staring like– Actually, Clint doesn’t know like what. He must be losing his touch.

“Clint? _You’re_ Ronin?”

He shrugs. “Can hardly go by Hawkeye these days. Besides, it seemed fitting.” 

That, and Clint had been feeling rather maudlin at the time, with SHIELD being gone and all.

“I suppose it did,” Phil says slowly, studying him, and Clint shuffles his feet, uncomfortable with the scrutiny. He never thought the first conversation he would have with Phil after two and a half years would be about his new call sign, but what do you know?

“It’s just a name,” he says and looks past him pointedly until Phil remembers himself and gestures him to come on board. You don’t move uninvited into other agents’ stronghold these days – it tends to make them twitchy.

Phil’s team minus the pilot is huddled inside their lab, looking at screens, and they stop what they’re doing to watch Clint warily as he and Phil grow near. Clint’s first impression is that they’re all too young. The second is that he already knows two out of three, and he finds himself smiling almost despite himself. 

“Oh, look, it’s –”

“Agent Barton!”

“Jemma, no name, remember?” Phil says tiredly.

“Right, sorry about that.” Simmons doesn’t look remotely sorry and Clint grins at her.

“Hey, guys.”

FitzSimmons’s enthusiasm seems to have relaxed the other girl a little and Clint wonders if they had problems with Hydra within their own ranks when a voice on the intercom brings him back to the present:

_“If you’re all done now, you might want to get a move on. Take-off’s in 5.”_

Clint raises a surprised eyebrow. “May, is that you?” 

_“Hello, Barton.”_

Phil sighs and the girl Clint doesn’t know smirks at him. “Come on, AC, the no-name rule only works if everyone doesn’t already know the guy.”

“ _You_ didn’t know him,” Phil says and she arches an eyebrow at him.

“I hate to break it to you, Coulson, but I looked through SHIELD’s files on the Avengers as soon as we got a minute after dealing with–” She cuts herself off abruptly and no one will look at her except Clint. She clears her throat. “Anyway. I know who he is. Hi, I’m Skye!”

Phil apparently gives up then and turns to Clint.

“I’ll show you where to put your gear,” he says and Clint has no choice but to go with him, even though being alone with Phil is the last thing he wants. Phil will want to Talk, and interacting with Nick has taught Clint that it’s a lot easier to keep things on the level if they don’t make it personal. They’ll work this job together and any other that come their way, and leave it at that.

Easy. 

Any attempt at conversation is thankfully thwarted by Phil’s team coming up to strap themselves in for take-off, but they’re gone again as soon as the plane levels off. The silence is fucking uncomfortable and Clint finds himself wondering what he is even doing here – between May and Phil, they have more than enough manpower and he doubts they’ll need him. If this is Fury’s meddling in things that don’t concern him, Clint will be pissed. Again.

“How are you, Clint?” Phil asks tentatively, either not catching on to Clint’s unwillingness to make conversation or ignoring it. Probably ignoring it. The man can be just as stubborn as Clint himself when he wants to be.

“Fine.”

“Really? Then why won’t you look at me?”

Clint tenses. “I’d rather not talk about it.”

“Clint–”

“What do you want from me?” he interrupts, turning around to meet his eyes, and Phil is the one who looks away this time.

“I just… I missed you,” he says quietly.

Clint snorts. “All you had to do was pick up your phone. I would have but I thought you were dead, so I guess that one is on you.”

So much for keeping it professional. He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. He can do this.

“I’m sorry,” Phil says and Clint shrugs dismissively.

“Yeah, well. Like I said, it’s fine. I’m fine.” He stands. “We should get to work.”

Phil doesn’t call him on the obvious lie and pulls up the satellite images of the compound.

At least the flight is a short one.

The lab is deserted when they get there but it’s not a complete bust. Whoever was there left in a hurry and didn’t wipe their drives as carefully as they should have. Clint can hear Skye crowing at the computers over the comms. as he watches the perimeter and he figures there must be more than enough data in there to keep Hill busy for a while.

The phone in Clint’s pocket buzzes as they’re wrapping up – new coordinates – and when he looks up from the text he catches Phil looking at him.

“Do you need us to drop you off somewhere?” he asks cautiously. 

Clint shakes his head and manages not to feel bad when Phil’s hopeful expression falls.

“It’s not that far, I’ll drive,” he feels compelled to add. Apparently he’s going to Trondheim. He can be there in eight hours, no biggie. 

“Do you need back-up?” Phil asks, clearly unwilling to let him go just yet, and while Clint would have once welcomed the concern – would have basked in it, even –, not today.

“Nah, I’m good. I’ll ask May to give me a ride into Storuman so I can find a car. I’ll see you around, I guess?”

Phil nods. “Take care of yourself.”

He looks old all of a second and Clint forces one of his winning smiles. It feels more like a grimace.

“I always do.”

“No, you don’t,” Phil says softly as he starts to walk away and Clint pretends he didn’t hear him.

 

Clint has a handful of ops with Phil’s team over the course of the next few months. He manages to keep his distance without avoiding Phil per se, making sure they’re never alone together. It gives him an opportunity to study Phil with his team – his replacements – and he’s puzzled by what he sees. Phil… Phil’s different. He’s freer with his expressions and more relaxed than Clint remembers him being before. He also smiles more and the affection he has for them is obvious. At the same time he seems to be carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, and Clint isn’t sure why that is. He could ask, probably, but he doesn’t. 

It often feels like he doesn’t know this version of Phil at all. Then again, Phil probably feels the same way about him, so maybe it’s only fair.

 

Everything goes to hell on a routine surveillance mission in Berlin. Clint is alone this time, and it’s a small mercy because he wouldn’t want anyone with him in whatever basement Hydra has him.

They know who he is. They take their time. 

They don’t have him for long – a day, maybe two. He kinda lost track of time after a while. Then Natasha shows up and Clint manages to make it to the door on his own two feet before he passes out. 

He wakes up to find Natasha and Fury looking down on him with twin expressions of concern – or as concerned as those two ever look anyway. It’s about as unsettling as it sounds.

“What’s wrong?” he asks and Nat glares at him.

“You almost died. Idiot.”

“Had to happen eventually,” he mumbles and drifts off again.

He doesn’t remember much about the next couple of days, only that Nat keeps dosing him every time he wakes up long enough to string two words together. He’s not complaining – it makes the pain tolerable, at least – but it’s getting a little tiresome to be unconscious all the time. 

The next time she comes at him with a needle he glares at her until she relents. 

“What’s the verdict?” he asks and almost doesn’t recognise his voice, low and scratchy.

“Couple of broken fingers, broken ribs, pneumothorax, concussion and too many cuts and burns to count,” she tells him clinically.

“So, not too bad, then?” Nat doesn’t look amused by his attempt at humour. “Sorry.” 

He tries to get comfortable and fails. The whimper that escapes him is more than a little pathetic.

“You look like crap,” Nat sighs. “Go back to sleep.”

She stabs him with the needle and Clint shoots her a betrayed look before the drug starts taking effect. Going back under doesn’t seem like such a bad thing after all.

Phil shows up a week later when Clint is just starting to feel a little more coherent. He spares a thought to be thankful that he didn’t come earlier when he could barely think straight. Still:

“What are you doing here?”

“Clint, you almost died.”

“I almost died two years ago too. Angola. Op went to shit. Lost three agents.”

Phil nods to himself. “I know you’re angry with me–”

“I’m not,” he says honestly. And because painkillers make him more talkative than he usually is, he finds himself adding: “Disappointed, maybe. I’ll get over it.”

“Could we talk about that sometimes?”

Clint stares back at him unblinkingly. “I don’t see what there is to talk about.”

“I’m sorry.”

He’s lost count of how many times Phil has said as much in the past months. He wishes he would stop.

“Why do you keep apologising?” he asks and Phil seems taken aback by the question.

“Because you haven’t forgiven me?” He sounds tentative, like maybe it’s a test and he isn’t sure it’s the right answer. Clint sighs. 

“Look, you don’t need to apologise. You were following orders. I know that. _Intellectually_ I know that. Hell, I probably would have done the same if Fury had asked me.”

Actually he has no idea what he would have done if he had been in Phil’s shoes and he hopes he never has to find out. He doesn’t think he could do it _now_ , when he knows what it feels like to be on the wrong side of it.

“That doesn’t make it hurt any less,” Phil points out and Clint nods.

“No, it doesn’t, but that’s something _I_ need to deal with. Do I wish my feelings had mattered enough to you to tell me the truth anyway? Obviously. But we weren’t… we weren’t anything – I mean, we were friends,” he hurries to add when Phil looks unhappy and opens his mouth to protest. “But that doesn’t change the fact that none of it was actually about me. And you apologising over and over again really is not helping me keep that in mind. So stop. Please.”

“Okay, I’ll try.”

“Thanks.” Clint yawns. He’s exhausted all of a sudden. “Gonna go to sleep now,” he mumbles, eyes already closing.

“You want me to go?” Phil asks softly and Clint just can’t bring himself to care one way or another.

“Whatever,” he answers without opening his eyes and he thinks he feels Phil’s careful hand over his just before sleep claims him.

Something changes between them after that. Phil visits during Clint’s recovery – oh, not too often: he is careful not to push, backing off before Clint can get angsty, but every now and then he’ll make a point of seeking him out and ask his opinion on something. It’s awkward and stilted, and purely work-related at first, but slowly it becomes more personal – whether Clint knows any good restaurants in Prague, if he wants to join the team in the lounge for a movie, what he thinks of this or that tie – and Clint is powerless to resist being drawn back in. 

It’s a strange role reversal from the way it was before, when Clint was always the one showing up in Phil’s office uninvited, but as they carefully settle back into a fragile friendship, he thinks maybe they’ll come out the better for it in the end. 

That doesn’t stop him from occasionally wondering what the hell he is doing – this was not the plan, damn it – but being in the middle of a guerrilla war against Hydra leaves very little time for existential crises and he stops thinking about it so hard as soon as he’s back on his feet and joining the fray again.

It’s been almost a year since they started going after Hydra on their turf, and while it sometimes feels like there is no end in sight, Fury and Hill both assure him they’ve made a lot of headway. It would be easier to believe if their intel wasn’t such complete shit sometimes. Take the Hydra warehouse Clint is currently surveilling. He’s in Texas, looking in on what’s been sold to him as a regular Hydra weapon stockpile, and on the surface that’s exactly what it looks like. But when you start factoring in the number of people going in and out of the place every day and the size of the thing – way too small, ergo basement, ergo weird Hydra experiment (probably) – it becomes pretty obvious it’s anything but. 

This is when Clint would usually call for back-up, but they’re already stretched thin and he figures he might as well take a look before calling the cavalry. There are too many guards for him to engage directly, and so he goes for stealth over brute force, although he does rig the place with explosives first, figuring he can just blow the whole thing up – preferably without him still in it – if push comes to shove.

Finding a way in is not as difficult as he thought it would be – might be a trap or just another case of Hydra’s arrogance. They’ve been carrying on undisturbed for a year in this place and maybe that’s given them a false sense of security. Clint hopes so anyway, because he’s going in.

It turns out he was right about the basement. It’s mostly scientists down there, whom he avoids easily, except for that one lab with two guards in front of it. So of course Clint has to take a look inside. He goes in through the ventilation shaft – that’s the good thing about basements, always a lot of alternative routes – and lands in a crouch, immediately buoyed by the fact that no one starts screaming or shooting at him.

From his position he can’t see much of the room – a white board with equations that make no sense to him, some equipment, a table with something on top of it that’s unmistakable. Clint flinches so hard he almost loses his balance, a shiver of revulsion running through his body. 

Loki’s staff. 

He hates that thing, he hates it so fucking much. It makes his skin crawl to even be in the same room as it but now that he knows it’s here, he can’t exactly leave it in Hydra’s hands either. Who knows what they’ve been doing with it.

Clint sends off a quick text and stands carefully, making a quick sweep of the room. Which is when he gets surprise number 2.

Tucked at the back of the room, there is a transparent cage divided in two with a couple of kids inside it. They’ve plastered themselves as far away from him as they can and stare at him warily, and Clint really hates Hydra. Also this thing just became a rescue mission and it’s going to make everything a lot more difficult. But it’s not like he can leave them there now that he’s found them, and so he looks the cage over, trying to figure out the opening mechanism.

The kids both flinch as he comes closer and he raises his hands up in the air, trying his best to look inoffensive.

“Hey, it’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you.”

The boy seems to flicker, disappearing for a second and reappearing two feet away from his previous position, and Clint blinks. What the hell? Whatever, he doesn’t have time to deal with it now.

“I’m going to get you out of there. Do you know how to open this thing?”

Behind him, a door whooshes open and the girl’s eyes widen at something over his shoulder. Clint doesn’t think: he pivots and draws his bow at the same time – once, twice. The two scientists who’ve just come in die with a surprised look on their faces and that brings the two guards inside. They die too.

So much for looking harmless.

So much for stealth too. Even if no one heard anything, the fact that the guards are no longer at their post is going to raise an eyebrow sooner or later. Clint barricades the door and fishes out his phone again, dialling even as he goes back to the cell.

“So, things kind of got complicated,” he opens with when Fury picks up. “This regular Hydra warehouse you sent me to? _Not_ a regular Hydra warehouse.”

“I figured from your text. What else?”

“I’m not sure, they’ve got prisoners. And a lot of scientists. Some kind of experiment?” His fingers slide off the plastic without getting any purchase and he curses. “Also, they’ll know I’m here pretty soon.”

As if on cue, a klaxon starts blaring and Clint sighs inwardly. Awesome.

“Get out of there,” Fury tells him. “The Bus is one hour out, you can regroup and come back later.”

“I would, but I can’t get this fucking thing to open,” Clint says, swearing again. He can _feel_ the edge of the door with his fingers but he can’t get it to budge.

“What the hell are you even doing?” Fury asks. “I said get your ass out of there.”

“They’re kids, I can’t just leave them there.”

“You can and you will. I’m not losing another agent, do you hear me?”

“I hate to break it to you, but I’m not an agent anymore.” Clint hangs up, cutting off Fury’s sputtering, and takes stock of the situation. There are people banging on the door, trying to force their way in, and he still has no idea how to open the cell. Well, time to stop jerking around.

“Get back and cover your ears,” he tells them and stabs an arrow where he assumed the pivot point is on the boy’s side of the cell. Then he blows it up. When it works he repeats the process on the other side, and then they’re both out and they really need to go _now_. 

“Come on,” Clint says and boosts them up into the vent one after the other before grabbing the staff reluctantly and following. 

It’s cramped and the kids aren’t nearly as quiet as they needed to be for this type of transportation, but it’s not like they’ve got another option. Hydra is not stupid and they’ll catch on quickly when they get that door open. In the meantime they need to put as much distance as possible between them.

Clint drops them out of the shaft as close to the stairs as he dares. If he was on his own he would have gone up to the surface in the vents, but he doubts either kid is up to a vertical climb in a smooth conduit with no line.

There are guards guarding the staircase this time and Clint curses mentally, ducking back behind the corner. They’re sitting ducks here and they need to move, but the last thing he wants is a shoot-out in close quarters where his aim is hardly an advantage. 

As he tries to come up with a workable plan that won’t get them all killed – really, he’d appreciate it – the kids whisper to each other behind him and he would tell them to be quiet except their conversation catches his attention:

“We can do this,” the girl is saying. “I’ll take them out and you get out of here.”

“I can’t,” the boy protests.

“Yes, you can. You _know_ you can.”

“I won’t leave you here! And besides, your thing backfires half the time.”

“Uh, guys, no offense but I don’t think anyone is going anywhere at the moment,” Clint interrupts before they decide to execute whatever mutiny they’re planning.

“Pietro can,” the girl insists stubbornly.

“Okay…” Clint says slowly, thinking back on the weird flicker the boy – Pietro? – had done back in his cell. Who _are_ those kids? “What is it Pietro can do, exactly? And who are you?”

They look at each other and hesitate, because apparently rescuing them from their glass prison didn’t win Clint their trust – good kids.

“I’m Wanda. Pietro’s my brother. He runs very fast – like, _very_ fast,” Wanda finally says and Clint tries not to look too dubious. Then again the world’s gotten weird and who is he to question her? Besides, it’s not like they have a better plan.

“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do: I’m going to create a distraction and you guys will run for it – yes, you too,” he tells Wanda sternly. “I don’t care if you don’t run fast, you’re getting out too. Here, take this.” He shoves the staff at Pietro, glad to be rid of it, and the boy’s hands close over it instinctively. “There is a plane coming, the people on it will help you. Tell them Clint sent you. Find Phil, you can trust him, okay?”

“What about you?” Wanda asks and Clint forces a smile.

“I’ll be right behind you,” he says and hopes that’s not a lie. “Wait for my signal.”

He hoists himself back into the vent and quickly travels in the opposite direction so that he’ll be positioned on the other side of the staircase from where the kids are. He doesn’t waste any time, shoving the access panel open with a loud clang and coming out shooting. It takes a couple of seconds for the guards to start firing back, and when Clint falls back they follow, leaving the staircase wide open.

Pietro is a windy blur that knocks Clint into the wall – it’s good, Clint thinks distantly, it’ll clear a path for his sister. He’s a little too slow getting back to his feet and he stumbles again when he gets hit in the vest, but he forces himself to stay upright and keeps drawing his bow because the girl is still not out yet. He’s got guards on both sides now and it’s not looking good, and when he gets hit again this time he goes down.

“No!” someone cries out and Clint sees Wanda at the entrance of the staircase – that’s good, that’s great – but then she stops – why the fuck has she stopped? 

He tries to will her to go with his mind but instead she raises her hands and spheres appear out of nowhere in front of her. For a second everyone in that hallway seems to pause and stare at her, and then the spheres explode outwards. Clint ducks reflexively but whatever those things are doing, they’re not doing it to him. The guards on the other hand…

Clint pushes himself back to his feet when Wanda tugs on his arm insistently and they get to the stairs together. They don’t meet anyone on their way up, which is weird but makes more sense when they hit the ground floor. It looks like it’s been hit by a tornado, and the rest of the guards are sprawled on the ground, either dead or unconscious.

“So… it’s a neat trick you guys do,” he says but Wanda doesn’t answer, ditching him to catch up with her brother who’s waiting for them not too far from the building. 

Clint will have to have a word with him at some point about his definition of ‘out of here’. 

He’s half-expecting the kids to disappear into thin air but instead they stick close to him while he looks for a good spot to wait for his backup. His ribs hurt and he really just wants to sit down for a while, but he’s got no idea how many people are left down there. If there are any, they’ll come after them sooner or later and he’d rather not be out in the open when they do.

Luckily, Phil gets there first.

“Hey, guys,” Clint drawls out as soon as he and May get near enough. Wanda and Pietro are looking jumpy and he’d like to avoid friendly fire. “So I ran into a spot of trouble but it’s pretty much sorted out now – I think. You might want to check with your fancy gadgets before heading in, though.”

“Fitz, did you get that?” Phil says into his comms. and nods to himself at whatever answer he gets before he turns his focus on Clint again. “Are _you_ okay?” 

“Got two in the vest,” Clint tells him succinctly. “Hurts to breathe, but I don’t think I broke anything. I’m fine.”

“Who are your friends, Barton?” May cuts in and he grins at her.

“Right, this is Wanda, and this is Pietro. They’re pretty great. Also, do either of you know if C4 works on this thing because I’d really like to get rid of it once and for all.” He nods at the staff and Phil grimaces.

“We’ll ask Thor,” he says and Clint raises an eyebrow. 

“Really?”

“Yeah, he showed up at Doctor Foster’s place in London last week.”

“Well, that’s helpful.”

Phil nods and reaches out to help Clint back to his feet. His hand lingers a little. Maybe he thinks Clint is unsteady. “Come on, Fitz says he’s ready.”

They clear the facility room by room, securing what’s left of the Hydra contingent, and find a second basement with two dozen unconscious people lying on gurneys. It’s in situations like this that Clint really misses SHIELD. The Hydra soldiers they can turn over to the FBI, but what the fuck are they supposed to do with the others? SHIELD Medical would have been their best bet, but as it is they have neither the resources nor the facilities to look after them or figure out what’s wrong with them. The local hospital will have to do – maybe they can get Banner to consult. Gamma radiation, right?

“Do you know what Hydra was trying to do?” Clint asks the kids later when they’re on the Bus and Phil is dealing with Fury.

“Change them,” Pietro blurts out, and then he won’t say another word and Wanda reaches out to hold her brother’s hand.

“They all die,” she says. “We’re the only ones who didn’t.”

Clint doesn’t know what to say to that so he says nothing at all. They don’t seem to mind the silence. He supposes they’re used to it.

 

No one is quite sure what to do with Wanda and Pietro. They have no family to go back to, and even if they did it wouldn’t be safe for them. They could start over, make a life for themselves in some far part of the world. Or they could stay and join their ragged team of former SHIELD agents to get revenge on Hydra. After all, they share a common goal and it’s the only thing that will truly guarantee their safety. And their abilities sure could come handy.

Clint, however, isn’t convinced. The twins were in college when Hydra abducted them – they’ve forgotten how long ago – and special abilities aside, they have no training whatsoever. Hell, by their own admission they don’t even control what they can do all that well, and the last thing Clint wants is to add to his list of innocents he got killed.

Natasha is the one who points out they could just ask the twins what they want to do, and Clint feels resigned when they say they want to stay. Fury calls in a favour with Doctor Strange and ships the kids off to him for some lessons. He sent Clint along to babysit – which, really? – because apparently the twins like him – again, really? – and he can start training them while he’s at it.

Clint grumbles about it to Phil over the phone and Phil laughs and says:

“Of course they like you, Clint. You’re very likable.” 

That makes Clint’s heart flip-flop in his chest but he swiftly stomps on the emotion and changes the subject. Why is this happening again?

Friendship aside, Clint’s feelings for Phil have always been complicated. When he had first realised he was in love with the other man, years ago, he had struggled with it. It had been pretty clear even then that Phil didn’t feel that way about him and Clint hadn’t been interested in pining after him for the rest of his life. So he had done his best to move on – had even been more or less successful –, while learning to accept that part of him would always love Phil. And that it was okay. 

But then Phil had died and Clint had had no choice but to box those feelings and push them as far back in his mind as he could. It had been the only way he had known to keep going, and for a while he had coped. Not very well and not very healthily, maybe, but enough to remain functional and do his job.

When Phil had come back, all the anger and hurt Clint had felt had made it seem impossible that he would ever feel that way about Phil again and he had been glad for that at least. But now they’re back to being friends and it feels like Clint is falling for him all over again. Phil’s changed and he has no problem showing that he cares about Clint. He smiles at him and laughs at his jokes and reaches out and touches him for no reason Clint can discern. If Phil was anyone else – hell, if he was himself from before –, Clint would think he was flirting with him, but then his behaviour is not that different from when he is with his team, and Clint doesn’t know what to think.

“I could help if you wanted,” Wanda tells him one day when she finds Clint staring at his phone after another confusing conversation with Phil, and he understands just enough whatever it is she does to be unable to stop the sharp “No!” that escapes him. 

She looks hurt and Clint softens his expression. She’s only trying to help. Being locked up in a Hydra’s basement for years has screwed up with the twins’ views on acceptable behaviour but they’re working on it. 

“I don’t want Phil to love me because you’ve changed the odds in my favour,” he says. “I want him to love me because he can’t help himself. Besides, you shouldn’t mess with people’s brains. Everyone should be able to make their own decisions.”

Wanda nods slowly and scampers off to find her brother. Clint sighs. It’s still very much a work-in-progress.

They’re coming to the end of their stay with Strange when Fury calls for a meeting. It’s in New York – at Stark Tower of all places – and Clint has a bad feeling about it.

Pietro and Wanda stay glued to his side when Jarvis directs them to the penthouse. Stark is already there, along with Banner – who looks like he’d rather be anywhere but here – and Natasha who smiles at him and moves to stand next to him. Clint is starting to get a better idea of what this is.

“Barton. I didn’t know we were bringing friends,” Stark says with a raised eyebrow. 

Clint feels both Wanda and Pietro tense next to him, but he is spared from having to come up with a witty rebuttal by Rogers’s arrival. He has a couple of guys Clint doesn’t know with him, and now _Nat_ is the one tensing. He shoots her an interrogative look but she shakes her head, mouthing ‘Tell you later’. 

“Seriously, no one told _me_ it was a party,” Stark mutters. He’s got his phone out and Clint figures he is seconds away from summoning Potts or Rhodes, but thankfully Thor flies in then – unaccompanied. They’re all there, and this seems to be the signal Fury was waiting for to come breezing in, Coulson and Hill in tow.

“We’ve got a problem,” he says and Stark raises his hand, staring at Phil.

“Is it zombies? Because I couldn’t help but notice you’ve got a dead man next to you.”

“No, Stark, it’s not zombies,” Fury says with a benign smile that’s scary as fuck. “Now, as I was saying–”

“No, I mean it, seriously?” Stark interrupts again, showing off his lack of survival instinct, but this time he’s got back-up and Rogers joins in:

“Stark’s got a point.” 

Fury glowers at the room. “Fine. Yes, Agent Coulson died. Yes, he came back. No, I didn’t tell you. Are we all happy now?”

“Uh, how about _no_?” Stark says. “Did you two know about this?” he directs the latter at Clint and Natasha, who look at each other and shrug.

“Eventually,” Nat says. 

“What about you? You don’t seem that surprised?” Stark asks Thor, who shoots a guilty look at Phil.

“The Lady Sif informed me of the son of Coul’s return after she visited this land.”

Phil nods in understanding while Stark sputters, and Clint wonders when they’ll ever get to the point. Judging by the bored look on Natasha’s face, she agrees with him.

“I have no idea what the fuck is going on,” one of Rogers’s friends says.

“Who _are_ you, anyway? Seriously, what is it with all these people I don’t know in my tower?” Stark complains and for a moment it looks like the situation is going to dissolve into a free-for-all when a sharp whistle cuts through the noise.

Silence returns abruptly as everyone turns to stare at Hill.

“Thank you,” Fury says primly. “Now can we move on to the subject at hand?” He looks at them one by one, practically daring them to interrupt again, and Clint almost thinks Stark is going to but the man settles down with a glower and Fury takes advantage of the stony silence that ensues to hand Hill a flash drive. 

She plugs it in and brings up the content, hitting play without further ado. On the screen a slightly familiar-looking robotic armour is destroying a lab. They watch it for a minute until the feed cuts off abruptly and a new video starts playing, this time outside on a busy street.

“Is that Stark?” Rogers asks as the same armour walks out into the middle of the road, and Stark raises both eyebrows at him.

“I’m offended. Really, I am. That looks _nothing_ like me.”

“That thing –” Fury interrupts before the bickering can escalate, “– killed six scientists when it escaped that lab. A day later it blew half a city block.”

“What is it?” Natasha asks.

“According to the files, some sort of AI, codename Ultron. We haven’t been able to figure out what it wants yet. Either way it needs to be stopped.”

“I’m sorry but how is this your problem, exactly?” Stark again. “No offense but SHIELD is pretty much extinct these days. And I thought you were already busy dealing with Hydra.”

Phil steps forward. “SHIELD may be gone but the Avengers aren’t,” he says, speaking for the first time, and his statement is met by thoughtful silence until:

“What do we know?” Rogers asks, leaning forward. Phil gives him a nod and launches into the briefing. 

It feels just like old times.

 

Two days later, Clint is enjoying one last moment of peace and quiet before he gets stuck on a plane with people who don’t particularly get along all the way to Russia, where if all goes well they’ll cross path with Ultron. He’s checking his arrows one by one and going over their strategy in his head when Phil finds him. Phil is not going, he’ll be monitoring things from the Bus while Hill and Fury stay in New York, and Clint is glad for that at least. If this thing goes to hell, those of them who make it out will have someone to rally around and stand a fighting chance to try again.

He hasn’t seen much of Phil in the past couple of days. He’s been with Fury and Rogers a lot and Clint isn’t jealous. He didn’t even want to deck Rogers when he first saw him again like he had once promised himself he would. He supposes that means he has grown as a person.

“There you are,” Phil says, smiling. “I was looking for you.”

“What’s up?”

“Nothing. I just… I wanted to say something to you before you left.”

Clint puts his quiver down and stands, giving Phil his full attention because the man is looking both determined and uncharacteristically anxious.

“Phil?” he prompts when Phil doesn’t say anything. “You okay?”

The question seems to snap Phil out of whatever existential crisis he seems to be marred into and he straightens with renewed resolve. 

“Yes, I’m fine. As I was saying, I was wondering if – I mean, when you come back and only if you want to, of course– I was thinking maybe we could– Oh, fuck it!”

Phil grabs him, pushes him up against the wall and kisses him. And if the near incomprehensible string of words from before was confusing, this is even more so.

Clint struggles instinctively – that’s what he does when people shove him into walls and come at him – but then his brain catches up with what’s happening and he relaxes all at once, his arms coming up to hold on to Phil tightly, pulling him closer. Phil moans into his mouth, the kiss frantic with pent-up frustration and need, and Clint knows where that desperation leads – a quick tumble into bed and an awkward morning after. There is a time and place for that kind of thing but it’s not what he wants. Not with Phil.

“Wait, wait, stop,” he says, putting his palms on Phil’s chest to push him away, create some distance between them. Phil goes, taking a step back, and Clint almost groans at the sight of him, flushed and dishevelled and very obviously hard. 

“What are we doing?” Clint asks before he can lose his resolve and Phil quirks an eyebrow at him.

“I thought that was fairly obvious.”

Clint throws him an unamused look and Phil sobers up instantly. “I’m sorry, did I read this wrong? I thought–”

“No, no, you didn’t,” Clint says, shaking his head. He might as well ‘fess up to that at least. “What I mean is, _why_? What do you want?”

“Oh.” Phil’s expression clears and he steps forward again, bringing his mouth to Clint’s ear to whisper: “I want to kiss you. I want to date you. I want to fuck you. And I want to wake up tangled with you the next day and do it all over again. In whatever order you’re comfortable with.”

Clint shivers and then gasps when Phil presses his mouth to that spot behind his ear before moving down his throat – slowly, so slowly. 

“Since when?” he manages to ask shakily and Phil looks at him.

“Since when have I been in love with you?” 

Clint squeezes his eyes shut at the words he never thought he’d hear and nods. His heart is thumping wildly in his chest and he is sure Phil can feel it when he presses his hand to Clint’s chest.

“I’m not entirely sure. It kind of crept up on me,” he says with a wry smile. “A few months, maybe?”

Clint lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “Okay, good.”

“Good?” Phil asks curiously and Clint nods.

“Yeah.” He doesn’t elaborate – maybe he will, someday – but deep down he is relieved. If Phil had already been in love with him before his death, well… Clint isn’t sure he could have stomached Phil letting someone he loved think he was dead – or trust that he truly did. Better it be something new, something they can build on. “Come here,” he says and pulls Phil closer so he can kiss him again. 

It’s slower this time, less urgent, and when Phil presses his thigh between Clint’s legs, Clint can’t stop the roll of his hips into it – nor does he want to. It feels good, it feels so good, and he groans, one hand at the back of Phil’s neck and the other gripping his hip.

“Phil, _Phil_ ,” he says, over and over again, and Phil tells him it’s okay, tells him to let go, tells him he’s got him, urging him on by squeezing his ass, and Clint comes with a yell, his vision whiting out for a second.

He doesn’t waste being embarrassed about coming in his pants like a teenager and fumbles with Phil’s pants, palming his cock through his underwear before taking him in hand and pulling him out.

“Fuck,” Phil says rather ineloquently as Clint starts jerking him off, and Clint watches him slowly lose control. 

It doesn’t take long and Phil comes with his face pressed against Clint’s throat, his teeth biting into the skin above Clint’s collarbone. It’s going to leave a mark, Clint knows, one he’ll carry with him all the way to Russia. He’s fiercely glad.

“Sorry,” Phil says, tracing the bite with a finger as he tries to catch his breath and Clint smiles.

“Don’t be.” He kisses him, silencing any more unnecessary apologies. “I don’t know about you, but I could use a shower and a change of clothes. Wanna come with?” 

Phil does.

They don’t have much time left but what little they have is theirs alone. They wash each other and they dress each other. Neither of them are young men anymore and it’s too early for them to get hard again, but there is something comforting about the intimacy of it. They hold each other until their time is up, and when he has to leave Clint pauses by the door, looking back at Phil.

“I love you,” he tells him and Phil smiles.

“I love you too. Go win this thing.”

Yeah, Clint thinks. He will. And then he’ll come back to Phil, who’ll be waiting. 

This time no one’s getting left behind.


End file.
